Resilience seems an odd choice of word for a period so closely connected to notions of decline and fall. Yet the concept of decline cannot be an effective analytical tool, since it only succeeds in dividing the past into “good” and “bad” periods. Such categories can be then easily manipulated to support ideas of cultures worthy and unworthy of study, and therefore of cultures that are better than or superior to other cultures – a dangerous path for the future of scholarship, let alone humanity. In a Late Byzantine context, the framework of decline has frequently influenced the way we have come to think about the socioeconomic and political phenomena of that period. It turns our attention to political and military conflicts, the devastation caused by the Black Death, and the socioeconomic and demographic challenges, but glosses over the constellation of possibilities, choices, and new trajectories created in times of change. It also makes it easier for us to believe in suffering and passive rural communities that lacked agency and were thus unable to adapt to new circumstances and successfully navigate crises.